W
estern Geomancy comes from a divination practice identified in the Arab
Antiquity, named "Ilm al Raml" (dots randomly traced on ground or sand), still
practiced today in Africa...
Known in the West from the XII th century, when the main part of written
geomancies were translated into Medieval Latin from sources in Arab, Hebrew, or
Ancient Greek (Byzantine),
it was only into the Late Middle-Ages and Renaissance that translations came in
French, Italian, Spanish, German, Europe, and a few in English...

This book is astonishing in its unusual profusion of external indexes,
each of which comprise in a series of coded digits geomantic
figure, making it a practical, useful manual (thus, the tag
represented
as "Conjontio" in the third house is written as : III / 2112. ;
which means the figure of Chaptre III composed of 4 stratas of
the following dots : even, odd, odd, even. The analogy of this
numerical encoding and of its tabs with binary code seemed to
me to be very interesting).

[*] Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Paris.

T
he second one
was the
geomantic astrolabe of The British Museum
,
a major work from Arab metallurgy of the XII th. century and
the
only known example of an "automatous" geomantic device. It
permits
the casting of a geomantic theme without any other support
other than
its mechanical "heart" made of 19 coded wheels
(thumbwheels).

On the front of the device an inlaid poem explains, in Arab,
the "how to" of the device :

"
I am the possessor of eloquence and the silent speaker

and through my speech arise desires and fears.

The judicious one hides his secret thoughts, but I disclose
them

just as if hearts were created as my parts...

...But I have spread out the surface of my face out of humility

and have prepared it as a substitute for earth.
"

T
he third one
was a book named "
Le Plaisant jeu du
Dodechedron
" (XVI th. century) describing a game , using
a 12 face dice (dodecahedron, geometric emblem of Macrocosm),
144 versified questions ordered in twelve houses and connected
to
1728 oracles inspired by geomancy handbooks.

These three singular encounters awaken in me the desire to illustrate
history, cultural diffusion and the divinatory principles of
geomancy
in a vivid fashion, through a multimedia presentation, thanks
to a Webpage structured as follows :

A "
Museum page
" (or small cabinet) will present the manuscript
"Geomantic Figures" as well as the geomantic astrolabe of the
British Museum.(xii century) of which an animated visual
sequence
recreates the operation of the tablet (in the form of a case
study of a geomantic theme drawn from historical medieval
chronicals).
It will include the full text of ""
Le Plaisant jeu du Dodechedron
" (in
old french verses)" with a
simulation of the dodecahedron's game
(only implemented in the French version of this page).

A "
Geomantic Handbook
(s) Page" will offer the text of a short
geomantic manual in English : "
Of Astronomical Geomancy
"
( XVI th. century) translated from an original Latin version
ascribed
to
Gerard de Cremone
, to be completed from the text of an
early English
translation
of "
La Geomance" by Christophe de Cattan
(a XVI th century book, printed in London).

Note
: I used the French version of Cattan's handbook for the French version of
this page.

A "
Geomantic Shield
" will propose an on-line simulation of a Geomantic Theme,
using oracular sentences from the "Astronomical Geomancy", and
from
"La Geomance" of Cattan" completed by the
Robert Fludd
's handbook
"
Fasciculus geomanticus
" (from the modern French translation by
P.V.
Piobb
).

An "
Atlas of The Geomantic World
" will introduce the worldwide
geomantic diffusion, through commentated bibliographies and
links.

Last update 16 December 2003.
Jean-Pierre MOULS multimedia projects are homed now on his own dotcom by
GEOMANCE EDITIONS [ URL : http://www.geomance.com ] are
:

THIS Dodechedron Project HomePage you actually see is
the English version of a page that has formerly initiated the FRENCH DODECHEDRON PROJECT.
This project also includes an
ANCIENT FRENCH GAME
from a
XVI th. c. book
in
Old French verses
, "
Le Plaisant Jeu du dodechedron
", with questions and oracles inspired by geomancy.
From this "Dodechedron Game" name comes the title of the project...

Geomance's Changes Homepage
first homed by Multimania.com (now owned by Lycos) : My very first Web
project, about Chinese
I Ching
(
Ji Jing Zhou Yi
) and Eastern Geomancy (
Feng Shu
i
), named the GEOMANCE PROJECT. This
both French and english webpage
was a Member of the
Wandering Daoists Webring
and a Menber of the
Geomance WebRing
too.